Toyota bZ4X Concept Previews Ultimate Embrace of Electric
By Edward A. Sanchez – April 19, 2021
Here at The Watt Car, we’ve typed out plenty of pixels commenting on, criticizing, and armchair-quarterbacking Toyota’s reluctance, token effort, and sandbagging on the future of battery electric vehicles. Since the early 2000s, the company has made it adamantly clear that it is the leader in hybrid technology, and believes it is the most rational path for a sustainable transportation future. It has even deceptively used the term “electrified” to describe its hybrids in the context that they “never need to be plugged in.” However, with ICE bans (including on hybrids) coming in less than a decade in some markets, it seems the message that the days of the internal-combustion engine are numbered is sinking in at Toyota City. Case-in-point, witness the bZ4X “Concept.”
The word “Concept” is in quotation marks, because everything about the bZ4X looks imminently ready for production, right down to the switchgear, interior materials, and exterior styling, replete with actual, physical door handles, and what appears to be an actual key hole. Few actual details of the bZ4X’s specifications are public, so it’s hard to exactly judge its overall size, pricing and market positioning. Its styling appears to be an evolution of the current RAV4, and considering the global popularity of the C-segment, it’s probably a safe bet it will be in that size class.
So what exactly do we know about the bZ4X? According to the press release, the bZ4X will be one of 15 “dedicated BEVs” including seven which will wear the bZ (beyond zero) badge. In the release, Toyota also hints at a BEV pickup at some point in the future as well. We also know the bZ4X was jointly developed with Subaru and is based on the e-TNGA platform. Production is planned in Japan and China for worldwide sales starting in mid-2022. Toyota says plans for the U.S. market “will be shared at a later date.”
It’s a foregone conclusion that Subaru will probably get some variation of the bZ4X. With Toyota and Mazda’s recent collaboration, one wonders if the platform will also be leveraged for Hiroshima’s benefit as well. The company may be a relative latecomer to the full-BEV game, but in almost every segment that it competes in, it usually becomes a large-volume player, the current-generation BMW-based Supra excepted.
So Toyota is definitely not lowering the curtains on its hybrids in the immediate future, but it may have no choice but to diversify into battery electrics in the near-to-mid-term. Assuming the charging infrastructure is built out to an extent to assuage the fears and concerns of the American car-buying public, the bZ4X (or whatever it’s eventually called) could be roaming the suburbs and highways of the U.S. in the hundreds of thousands by mid-decade.
Welcome to the future, Toyota. We’ve been waiting for you.
(Images courtesy Toyota)
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